Part 38 (1/2)

in the memorial verses prefixed to his brother's 'Collected Sonnets'

(1879).

line 205. Robert Lindsay of Pittscottie (a Fife estate, eastward of Cupar) lived in the first half of the sixteenth century, and wrote 'Chronicles of Scotland' from James II to Mary. Nothing further of him is known with certainty. Like the Lion King he was a cadet of the n.o.ble family of Lindsay, including Crawford and Lindsay and Lindsay of the Byres.

line 207. See above, IV. xiv.

line 212. John of Fordun (a village in Kincardines.h.i.+re) about the end of the fourteenth century wrote the first five of the sixteen books of the 'Scotochronicon,' the work being completed by Walter Bower, appointed Abbot of St. Colm's, 1418.

line 220. Gripple, tenacious, narrow. See 'Waverley,' chap. lxvii. - -'Naebody wad be sae gripple as to take his gear'; and cp. 'Faerie Queene,' VI. iv. 6:--

'On his s.h.i.+eld he GRIPPLE hold did lay.'

line 225. They hide away their treasures without using them, as the magpie or the jackdaw does with the articles it steals.

CANTO SIXTH.

Stanza I. line 6. Cp. Job x.x.xix. 25.

line 8. Terouenne, about thirty miles S. E. of Calais.

line 9. Leaguer, the besiegers' camp. Cp. Longfellow's 'Evangeline,'

I. 5,--

'Like to a gipsy camp, or a LEAGUER after a battle.'

Stanza II. lines 27-30. Cp. 'Faerie Queene,' III. iv. 7.:--

'The surges h.o.r.e That 'gainst the craggy clifts did loudly rore, And in their raging surquedry disdaynd That the fast earth affronted them so sore.'

lines 34-6. The cognizance was derived from the commission Brace gave the Good Lord James Douglas to carry his heart to Palestine.

The FIELD is the whole surface of the s.h.i.+eld, the CHIEF the upper portion. The MULLET is a star-shaped figure resembling the rowel of a spur, and having five points.

line 45. Bartisan, a small overhanging turret.

line 46. With vantage-coign, or advantageous corner, cp. 'Macbeth,'

i. 6. 7.

Stanza III. line 69. Adown, poetical for down. Cp. Chaucer, 'Monkes Tale,' 3630, Clarendon Press ed.:--

'Thus day by day this child bigan to crye Til in his fadres barme ADOUN it lay.'

lines 86-91. Cp. Coleridge's 'Christabel,' line 68.

'I guess, 'twas frightful there to see A lady so richly clad as she-- Beautiful exceedingly.'

Stanza IV. lines 106-9. Cp. 'Il Penseroso,' 161-6,--

'There let the pealing organ blow To the full voic'd quire below, In service high, and anthems clear, As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes.'

See also Coleridge's 'Dejection,' v.:--

'O pure of heart! thou need'st not ask of me What this strong music in the soul may be!' &c.